NASP: Network for the Advancement of Social and Political studies

Giovanni Abbiati

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abbiati picture Thesis Title: "IN-SERVICE TRAINING FOR TEACHERS IN ITALY.The evaluation of two training policies for lower secondary school teachers"

Thesis Abstract:
This dissertation aims at providing empirical evidence on the effectiveness of two training programs for math teachers in southern Italy ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. + and PQM). The programs are structured as content focused, one year lenght blended training sessions. These programs share many similarities: they are both addressed to middle school math teachers; they both try to fill the gap in math competence between the north and the south of the country; they try to provide teachers with innovative materials and teaching strategies; finally, there are population data on the students of grade 6 (thanks to the SNV-INVALSI tests) on which we can estimate the effectiveness of the two policies. Besides the similarities, the two programs have also two main differences: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. + does not provide teachers with any incentive nor additional hours to experiment the new materials in the classroom, differently from PQM. Moreover, PQM is intended to bring innovation in the entire school, thanks to training activities among colleagues. Another important difference lies in the two evaluation designs: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. + represents the first case in Italy of a school policy evaluated via a randomized control trial, while PQM is evaluated via non-experimental methods.
The results of the analyses show a positive impact of This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. + on teaching styles and on students' attitudes towards math. However, students feel to and no significant impact has been found on students math performance. Moreover, an unexpected effect lies in students' perception of time constraints in learning: treated students report more frequently than controls that they feel they have not had enough time on a given subject. Two possible reasons for these results can be found in the low participation rate (only about 40% of the enrolled teachers implemented the program as expected) and in the little time available to actually implement the new approach in the classroom.
On the other hand, PQM, for which there were no time constraints, show a higher participation rate and a positive effect on both student achievement and students' attitudes, without being negatively mediated by the feeling of time constraints. A high participation rate is found, jointly with a number of teaching activities implemented in the classroom higher than those experimented for This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. +. An analyses of participation, however, show that the provision of the incentive is not always closely linked with a real participation to the training sessions. Implications for policy are discussed.